Skill point strategies

[Daveybaby]

To level the chap up, you are going to have to do some missions in the quiet times. Suriving those missions is more important than succeeding with them

This also applies to ninjas that youre training up as saboteurs or assassins, but obviously you want to put skill points into those branches instead of spying, which makes things tricky. So instead, when picking ancillaries for ninjas, one of the choices almost always gives +10% chance to escape on failure, and i always pick those. Seems to work out well for me so far.

[Dead Guy]

I'm more fond of the +20% to escape from enemy agents myself. I find my ninja are rarely caught in the act (they fail, but rarely get executed), but more often found and tried by a metsuke. Furthermore, that event is something that I have no control over. If a mission has a poor chance of success I can always choose not to try.

[Rothe]

I'm more fond of the +20% to escape from enemy agents myself. I find my ninja are rarely caught in the act (they fail, but rarely get executed), but more often found and tried by a metsuke. Furthermore, that event is something that I have no control over. If a mission has a poor chance of success I can always choose not to try.

I tend to try for one or two "risk taking" ninja. That is, I only go for assasination bonuses and retainers I use to reduce "getting caught %". Those might die occasionally, but I have gotten two 6 star ninjas up without reloading by relentlessly doing missions that are pretty easy. I reserve these guys for high risk high reward missions, like assassinating an enemy Daimyo or high ranking general - that is, I don't use my 6 star ninja to spy in enemy territory where he might be caught or do missions that are low priority. I don't mind if an agent gets killed. I don't reload after lost battles either unless the whole campaign might fall to that loss. I find that with minimal reloading the game is more interesting, although I like to keep the chance (thus no legendary yet) to recover an interesting campaign.

I think it is a waste to level all your ninja to the same skills really. It is really nice to have a ninja good at spying and army sabotage, and try to make him with high escape chance. That ninja can then hang around where my armies can't see otherwise and possibly even split a multi stack attack, or at least give early warning. Couple of this kind and then a few "super assasins" are what I'd ideally like to have.

[frogbeastegg]

Oops. Stars representing experience is another game I've been tinkering with, not shogun II. Sorry.

[econ21]

Looking at the metsuke skill tree, four possible builds stand out:

The taxman: Go for 2 points in magistrate for +2 overseeing towns; but save a point a level 3 and only invest 1 pt in secret policeman as you won't be overseeing armies. Then at level 4, you can put 3 points in censor for another +3 overseeing towns. And that's it: no other skills will increase your tax revenue. The good thing is that you only need to be level 4. By then you will only have earned 6 skill points and so will have none spare. After that you will probably level so slowly [1XP per turn; 100 turns (25 years) to get to level 5], I would not worry about extra skills.

The corruptor: Save all your points a level 2 and then at level 3, put three into Bribery for +4 subterfuge for bribing. You've then got a long wait until level 6 when you can put 3 into Mercantile Contacts for a 40% cut in action costs. What to do with your four excess points? I'd be inclined to put three into traveller for 9% army movement range as you'll typically be deep in enemy, perhaps near an army. I guess you could put 1 point in counter-espionage so you at least can spend one point when you first ding.

The policeman: This one goes right down the counter-espionage chain, ending up with legendary thieftaker. If counter-spying only frustrates enemy actions, then it is only needed to unlock the chain. I would recommend putting only one point in that at the start and saving a point for level 3. You'll max out thieftaker with one point left over - I'd put it in eyes and ears for a +15 increase in campaign los.

The armyman: This is all about traveller for a +9% army movement range and eyes and ears for a +30 increase in campaign los. They require only 5 points but will be a long wait - being available only at levels 5 and 6 respectively. To unlock eyes and ears you need to go down the counter-espionage chain. I would spend three points in counter-espionage, as I assume counter-spying may help stop other agents messing with your army (not sure though) with only a token point in investigator and yakuza contacts to move down the chain.

Next game, I will try out these variations - although I may skip on the corruptor. Using monks to incite revolts and then metsuke to bribe the rebels created has been recommended as a good way of levelling up these two agents though.

[Rothe]

Looking at the metsuke skill tree, four possible builds stand out:

The taxman: Go for 2 points in magistrate for +2 overseeing towns; but save a point a level 3 and only invest 1 pt in secret policeman as you won't be overseeing armies. Then at level 4, you can put 3 points in censor for another +3 overseeing towns. And that's it: no other skills will increase your tax revenue. The good thing is that you only need to be level 4. By then you will only have earned 6 skill points and so will have none spare. After that you will probably level so slowly [1XP per turn; 100 turns (25 years) to get to level 5], I would not worry about extra skills.

The corruptor: Save all your points a level 2 and then at level 3, put three into Bribery for +4 subterfuge for bribing. You've then got a long wait until level 6 when you can put 3 into Mercantile Contacts for a 40% cut in action costs. What to do with your four excess points? I'd be inclined to put three into traveller for 9% army movement range as you'll typically be deep in enemy, perhaps near an army. I guess you could put 1 point in counter-espionage so you at least can spend one point when you first ding.

The policeman: This one goes right down the counter-espionage chain, ending up with legendary thieftaker. If counter-spying only frustrates enemy actions, then it is only needed to unlock the chain. I would recommend putting only one point in that at the start and saving a point for level 3. You'll max out thieftaker with one point left over - I'd put it in eyes and ears for a +15 increase in campaign los.

The armyman: This is all about traveller for a +9% army movement range and eyes and ears for a +30 increase in campaign los. They require only 5 points but will be a long wait - being available only at levels 5 and 6 respectively. To unlock eyes and ears you need to go down the counter-espionage chain. I would spend three points in counter-espionage, as I assume counter-spying may help stop other agents messing with your army (not sure though) with only a token point in investigator and yakuza contacts to move down the chain.

Next game, I will try out these variations - although I may skip on the corruptor. Using monks to incite revolts and then metsuke to bribe the rebels created has been recommended as a good way of levelling up these two agents though.

I really think Metsuke are a bit "off" in this game. The reason is that you are really better off putting them to oversee towns where you have the highest wealth level - that also usually means the highest growth. This will lead to them being all over the map far from the action.

I would actually change the Metsuke effect on towns to be growth boosting, instead of tax boosting. That way, you'd benefit from having them in your front line too (grow your new towns) and they'd be closer to the action. As a result, you could actually level them by actions, not just by overseeing, and you could use the other skills as well.

The current tax boosting is a dull... Why not just make it +2 growth per star? That way a maxed out Metsuke would be +20 growth that you could apply to whereever you want. Sure, it would be still less powerful than tax boosting, but more interesting. Including a retainer for +5% tax boost or something like that could still be done, and maybe one of the top overseeing skills could give +5% also, but it would take time to get there and meanwhile you could be arresting enemies and doing a lot more interesting things.

[blurryhunter]

First post, but I had to mention it since it was a pretty nice realization when placing points into any ninja agent's tree. There is a difference between a successful escape on a failure, and remaining undetected on failure. For those that might not know, if detected on a failure, the attempt penalizes your diplomacy with the target clan (if you're at war it pretty much doesn't matter if you intend to run them to extinction), but if they fail and are NOT detected, as far as the targeted clan is concerned, you were never involved. It is a simple, but important difference when you're on any of the higher difficulties where the AI is eyeballing you for any little reason to declare war and open up those nine stacks they've had sitting around.

I don't remember what skills did which, but I believe the upper one (Infiltrator?) gave a bonus to remaining undetected on failure, with the other branching to the right (don't take my word, look for yourself please, I can't remember the skills for the life of me right now) was chance to escape on failure (meaning you were detected, but avoided capture/execution). With all of that being the case, it's possible that those added points past any possible cap of 10 (I've had it say 10+ on the stars; there is an actual green + at the end of the stars), and that might effect the escape/undetected on failure.

On a side note, so far any success on ninjas (monks, metsuke, or geisha for that matter) that I've had gives no penalty to diplomacy with the targeted clan.

EDIT: I realize the post is almost a month old, but the information is still really important for those that have issues with diplomacy and agent use.

[Gregoshi]

Hello blurryhunter. Thanks for joining us here at the Org and making a nice contribution on your first post.

I have to say I never really paid attention the two degrees of "failed and escaped", though, as you say, there is a big difference in the significant of the result depending upon circumstances. I'll have to look at this more closely in the future.

[frogbeastegg]

We know what command stars do now. Check post 7 here.

This could potentially change ideas on general's skill builds; command stars are very nice if you get them in the right areas to support your army.